


guiding light

by ralf



Series: Close to Canon [26]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Minor Character Death Referenced, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s03e11 Lost Souls, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Parabatai Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-02
Updated: 2019-03-02
Packaged: 2019-11-08 01:28:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17971886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ralf/pseuds/ralf
Summary: There's nowhere left for him to go but down.[Set around 3x11.]





	guiding light

**Author's Note:**

> Set (I think??) sometime after Izzy and Jace talk, though this is kinda incompatible with Jace and Alec's actual conversation later on in the episode, so idk. Look, can we just pretend I finished this before 3x11 aired so I don't have to bother with a sound placement? Thanks :) 
> 
> FYI take this as my official leave of absence while 3B airs. I _might_ still post fic, but I'm dispensing myself from my weekly posting schedule, partly because I feel I'll spend more time on tumblr with meta stuff / reaction posts / shit posts so feel free to swing by :)

The darkness of the sky above him is mirrored in his heart. Cold seeps into Jace's clothes, the wind biting at his skin, but he barely feels it. He barely feels anything at all.

He'd hoped the vast emptiness on the Institute's roof, the unrelenting storm whooshing around him would be enough to wash away his thoughts, to drown out his mind, but it's not. The voices inside his head can't be silenced. The images, the _memories_ overlay the gray clouds around him, haunt him even when he closes his eyes, unescapable.

He has nowhere left to run.

The more he tells himself that it wasn't him the more it feels like a lie that he can't stop repeating to himself, because he's weak, because he's a disappointment, because he is the one to blame. All his thoughts are tangling in a downward spiral, whirling faster and faster, and he's scared to find out what lies at the bottom.

There's nowhere left for him to go but down.

Jace clenches his teeth against the sensation of falling, of hurling away from everything he's ever known. He forces his breaths to calm. The railing is frigid under his clammy fingers and he focuses on that, only on the cold metal against his palm and tries to let everything else go.

Time flows sluggishly. He stares ahead without seeing anything, skipping from moment to moment, like a leaf floating on a lake's surface, aimlessly.

A creak breaks him from his trance. The door leading to the roof scrapes over the flagstone, followed by heavy steps. He knows it's Alec without turning, hears it in the familiar gait and feels it in the soft, tentative thrum of his parabatai rune.

Alec comes to a halt next to him, their shoulders brushing. He doesn't speak. He's a solid wall of silence beside him and it's comforting in a way Jace can't fathom. There's relief in this unwavering immovable presence by his side, and it calms parts of Jace that he had thought would never come to rest again.

He knows Alec is content to say nothing and just lend him his support like this, without knowing what thoughts are spinning in Jace's mind, without an explanation, unconditionally. It's undemanding in a way few things have been in Jace's life, and it's what draws the words from his chest.

“I killed her. She was the only living relative I have ever known and I killed her.”

He grits his teeth again, steeling himself to hear the same reassurances from Alec that he's been trying to convince himself of unsuccessfully. Empty phrases that hold no meaning and leave a stale taste in his mouth and guilt churning in his gut.

He's scared to hear it from him. Alec is his last sanctuary. If Alec can't save him, he'll be truly lost.

He can almost hear Alec's voice shaping around familiar excuses, that it wasn't his fault, that he wasn't in control, that demonic possession is to blame.

It's not what Alec says.

“You'll learn to live with this truth. Eventually you'll stop blaming yourself. And maybe, someday, you'll forgive yourself.” Alec turns, trapping Jace with his dark, earnest eyes, his gaze just as heavy as the hand he lays on Jace's shoulder. “But you _will_ make it through this.”

Jace feels those words cut right to his core, prying him open and leaking his heart out, leaking every vulnerable part of himself that he's tried to deny exists. His eyes burn and he wants to fold, on and on until he's so small he disappears.

But Alec is there, steadfast and calm, anchoring him to himself. A chain that binds and tethers, all at once. Unescapable, but never failing him, holding him captive while keeping him safe.

_You will make it through this._

“I don't think I can.”

Alec's other hand finds his cheek, a firm, assured touch, another point of contact that grounds Jace.

“Yes you can.”

He sounds so confident about it. There's not a hint of doubt, no crevice of uncertainty, just unending conviction. In _Jace_.

Jace whispers, “What makes you so sure?” and Alec doesn't hesitate for the barest moment.

“Because I did, too.”

Jace blinks, uncomprehending, and then, like a slap to the face, he remembers: remembers returning to the Institute after his trial, remembers finding Izzy desoriented and injured. Remembers Alec by her side, with dried blood under his fingernails.

The memory claws at his lungs, tearing through his chest. He felt Alec's pain then, his guilt. His self-loathing.

How could he _forget_ that?

“ _Alec_ ,” he whimpers, a plea for forgiveness and of guilt all in one. Sobs break from his throat, the last shreds of self-restraint stripped away.

Alec is there to catch him, his arms strong around him, holding him afloat while wave after wave of darkness sweeps over him, wrapping around his ankles and pulling him under.

“Hey, none of that,” Alec murmurs into his hair, gently rocking him from side to side, like the child that he never really got the chance to be. “It's alright. You'll be okay.”

It should sound like a lie. It feels like he's never been farther away from being alright, every piece of himself unraveling in a current of blackness and damnation.

And yet Alec is with him, warm and adamant and unrelenting, and even in the midst of this chaos, in this pandemonium where everything he's ever known seems untrue, his heart flickers with the tiniest flame of hope.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://ralfstrashcan.tumblr.com/) :)


End file.
